The cool thing about Redlands is that we have many different organizations bringing really famous or interesting people to speak on campus. Whereas Tuesday I had the pleasure to listen to Sherman Alexie (and before that Temple Grandin, autistic scientist and public speaker), tonight Redlands hosted the poet and editor Kurt Brown as the first event for the Visiting Writer’s Series for the Spring 2013 semester.

My first impression of Brown was that he is very soft spoken. His voice is quite soothing, to the point where in an overheated room, I started having trouble staying awake. The poems that he shared (from two of his books) were a combination of humorous poems and serious/beautiful and elegant poems.

I remember the first poem he read quite clearly, which was titled Bologna. It was a humorous tirade on what bologna actually is, (a combination of different meats) and other not-so-pleasant aspects about it. It really was quite funny. But he also had some hauntingly beautiful images written in his poems. My favorite one was something along the lines of the fog settled on the bunkers like a blanket around a corpse.

But then we got to my favorite part of the evening (as always), which is the QandA. I couldn’t hear some of the questions, but I’ll do my best to reflect upon the answers I do remember.

One thing he talked about was, even as a professional poet, he has no idea what he’s going to do when he sits down to write a poem. Each time is different. One piece of advice he had for writers was when you start working on a poem, and you start with a topic on your mind, get off the topic as fast as you can. He said the odds of the new topic being something much more interesting to explore are great.

Another question he answered was if he had ever gone back to revise or continued working on a poem that was already published. The answer, yes. Multiple times. The two reactions he’s had going back to poems is, “my God, that’s brilliant!” and “this absolutely must be revised, even though it’s already published!” It’s comforting to know that even published writers are sometimes insecure about their work, which (if it’s popular) is deemed polished and successful by the public.

The last piece of advice that Brown had for writers was to get involved. Get involved with independent presses and magazines, because that market is not vanishing, it is not going away, and if you want to do something bad enough as a writer you can make anything work for you.

Overall, I really enjoyed the night, it had both humor and elegance, comforting insights for the up and coming writer (good thing, as he was speaking to a lecture hall-ful of them) and interesting advice to up and coming writers as well.

Until next time,

Joe

I had the distinct honor of listening to novelist and poet Sherman Alexie last night. First off, I just have to say he is hilarious and a superb public speaker and comedian. Immediately coming out of the speaking, the only thing I could think of, as a writer, was I wish I could be a humorous public speaker like that. I wish I could travel the world as a well published writer, and be able to speak in front of large crowds as care free and humorously as he did. It was wonderful.

So what was it that he talked about that was so thrilling and funny? To my surprise, he did not talk much about his published works. As a writer this was surprising to me because of all the book signings that I’ve been to, the usual format has been a reading, a Q&A session and then the book signing. Instead, he spent the time talking about his childhood and what it was like growing up as a Native American on a reserve in modern day America. There was a lot of humor packed into the talk, but mixed in with the humor was real and powerful emotions.

He talked about how because he was born with ten extra teeth that most humans don’t have, he had to have them pulled, and the dentist believed Native Americans only deserved half the novocaine as whites because they only felt half the pain. But then after a story like that, Alexie would throw in the statement: “I hope I run into him some day so that I can give him a kick to the crotch. I mean a mythological kick to crotch.” When addressing the frustrations from his peers when he left the reserve, his response (in hindsight) is that he is not better than them, but he is better than the expectations society has for Native Americans on reservations.

For the last 20 minutes or so (before he entertained the last question) Alexie went on a rant about homosexuality and all the different ways it is ridiculous for homophobics to be against gays. It was really quite funny. He also addressed transgender issues by talking about how when a male seahorse dies (because male seahorses are the ones that become pregnant) the alpha-female sea horse changes to male so that breeding can continue. His question to the audience was, if God didn’t love transsexual capabilities, then why did he create transsexual seahorses? It was great.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation and it inspired me as to what I might do as a writer.

Until next time,

Joe

Hey there!

This is my first formal post for the blog! I just want to talk a little about what my hopes are with this. My goal is that whenever I stumble across something interesting in the writer’s craft or something beautiful about the wilderness and the outdoors, that I can bring it here to share with people who are interested in hearing about it.

I want to address my very first blog post. I put that up as the test post while I was experimenting with blogs over this past Winter Break. I was thinking I’d take that down and make this my first blog post, but then I realized that it’s fitting, even for this blog. I was experimenting between website platforms and blogging platforms, and I nearly gave up on this idea, but thanks to my friend Nick, I figured out how to get the best of both worlds on this, and so the quote stands: the best way out is indeed through.

This leads me to the last statement of this post, which is to thank a couple people in the set up for this blog. I want to first thank my brother, Richard, for taking the time to answer the questions he could, when I first started planning this project, and I had no idea what the heck I was doing. Second, I just want to say thanks again to my friend Nick for being incredibly patient with my cluelessness around the web and answering the rest of my questions.

Now I’m excited to post about writing and the outdoors, and examining where the two cross in my life, and sharing that with anyone who is interested in following.

Joe